Lack of preparation…

Dear Reader,
     Even with my lack of preparation, I have felt more prepared for death than most people I know.  Mother and Daddy used to laugh about it all the time.  When we were very young, Mother used to say to Daddy, “Don’t you dare die and leave me with all of these kids!”   When people would ask Daddy to plan something too far in advance or ask him to do something that didn’t sound like any fun to him, you could hear him say, “Uhhh – I think I have to go to a funeral that day.”  When I was young, I thought – how does he know that?  As I grew up, it always made me laugh.  
     Daddy bought his and mother’s space in the mausoleum and called it his “file drawer”.  He was very upfront about death.
     When a young acting friend of mine died just a few weeks after my father’s passing, I was devastated to lose both at the same time.  I had no idea that life might deliver two deaths at once.  My mother refused to let me get dramatic about it.  “Well honey, we all have to go sometime,” was all she would say.  And then she changed the subject.
     When her stepmother passed away I was living in Texas, far away from the family.  She asked me if I wanted to come home for the funeral and I said, “No.”  I had said goodbye and let her know I loved her the last time I as in Kansas City and had spoken to her on the phone several times since then.  I said, “Life is for the living.”  And she said, “That’s right!”  She was proud of my answer.